Back Talk Lakewood/East Dallas

Lakewood resident writes new book about Ebby Halliday

Neighborhood writer and entrepreneur Mike Poss is at it again: This time, he has written "Ebby Halliday: The First Lady of Real Estate." The book, which debuts in bookstores in February, details the life story of Halliday, who will be 98 in March. Also in the book, you'll find lots of company history, comments from those who know Halliday best and a forward by former Dallas Cowboy Roger Staubach. Poss, who was recognized earlier this year as the creator of Ross Perot's famous presidential election charts, is married to neighborhood resident Mary Poss, a former Dallas mayor pro tem and mayoral candidate who sells real estate with Ebby these days. If you can't wait until February to get your hands on the book, visit Ebby's website, where you can order the book right now for $30.95 (including shipping); all orders placed before Dec. 15 will be autographed for free by Ebby.

Easing credit crunch puts the convention center hotel back on track

Good news for fans of the taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel, as well as for the pending DISD bond issue: The credit market, at least for public works projects, appears to be easing enough to allow AA-rated and above public entities to obtain financing. A DMN story indicates the city of Dallas intends to close on $253.3 million in water improvement project bonds this week; a few weeks ago, this and just about every other bond project in the country were frozen due to lack of capital or political will or lenders — take your pick. The $550 million convention center hotel, which Mayor Tom Leppert and many city councilmen have vowed to fund in January, requires issuance of municipal revenue bonds to generate the cash, so now that the market is coming back, lack of available funding shouldn't hold back Leppert or the council. I guess we'll see if the May referendum on the project causes the council members any heartburn when it comes time to approve the bonds in January.

Four Season Hotel slated to open at NorthPark?

The DMN reports that a Four Seasons hotel — this one a 250-room building at the northeast corner of NorthPark Center's property, presumably at Park Lane and Central Expressway — could be open as early as 2012. If built, it would join the Las Colinas Four Seasons as the second in the area. The hotel study group reporting the news said that if the hotel isn't already financed — and it probably isn't, according to the group — it might not open until 2013 or later, given the current credit situation nationwide.

La Parrillada: Delinquent taxes lead to another restaurant closing

Another one bites the dust, courtesy of the Texas comptroller's office: This time, it's La Parrillada on Gaston near the spillway, as first reported on FrontBurner. The Mexican restaurant, pretty popular for years in the building that once house a Pizza Inn, apparently failed to keep up with payments for either employee payroll or sales taxes, and the state opted to shut it down. This one follows last week's demise of Bailey's 1st & 10 sports bar at Mockingbird and Abrams. The difficult economy is forcing restaurants owners (along with the rest of us) to make some difficult choices, but it appears that skimping on payroll or sales taxes isn't the way to go if you're a business owner looking to cut corners.

Watch the Holiday Inn implosion at Royal & Central Expressway

I don't know what it is about watching implosions, but I can never get enough of them. The Morning News did a great job of showing us various views of the demise of the former Holiday Inn between Meadow and Royal on the eastside Central Expressway access road. The Holiday Inn once sat next to Troy Aikman Ford, which closed a few months ago. According to the News, Valencia Capital Management will be putting up an 83-acre mixed-use development on these two sites and others vacated by apartment demolitions; the development is slated to include high-rise condos (when the market improves, presumably), luxury townhomes, senior living complexes and medical office buildings. The News says the development will be completed by December 2009; I can guarantee you that's a mistake, because completing an 83-acre development in 13 months would be like completing the new Cowboys stadium in three months — it's not going to happen.

Recommendation made for Little Forest Hills zoning

The City Plan Commission approved the conditions of the Little Forest Hills conservation district, with a few changes to the submitted ordinance — for example, commissioners removed certain commercial and multi-family properties from the zoning boundaries. This means the conservation district request will move on to the Dallas City Council within the next few weeks. I just spoke to Dist. 9 Plan Commissioner Bob Weiss who reminded me to remind everyone that the recommendation is simply that: a recommendation, and that Dist. 9 Councilman Sheffie Kadane will essentially make the final call.

During interviews for a recent story about Little Forest Hills, Kadane said neighborhood support would weigh heavily when it came to making a decision about the new building restrictions, and that he'd need to see about 65 percent of the property owners — at the time of the City Council meeting — voting in favor of the ordinance.

There have been residential zoning cases around here in the past in which neighborhood input/opinion shifted in between the plan commission hearing and the council hearing, causing the council to vote opposite from the plan commission recommendation. Meaning, if you feel strongly either way, you need to follow the thing all the way through the city council hearing.

I'll let you know when I hear the item has been scheduled for a hearing at City Council.

Little Forest Hills Conservation hearing today

The Dallas Plan Commission today will hold a public hearing in regard to the proposed creation of a conservation district in Little Forest Hills. The effort has been in the works for several years and has generated much contention amongst homeowners there. I wrote a piece for the  Advocate in October, The Fight for Funkytown, that delves into some of the issues Little Forest Hills is facing. 

Because the plan commission will consider public opinion when making a recommendation to the city council, Little Forest Hills residents are encouraging neighbors to show up to voice their opinions — lots of folks representing either side of the debate are expected to show.

Thanks to Randall Heye who forwarded me the reminder — the CPC hearing is today, Thursday Nov. 6 at 1:30 p.m. at Dallas City Hall, 6th Floor, in the City Council Chambers. If you plan to attend, bear in mind the Little Forest Hills hearing is low on the docket, so you should expect ot be at City Hall until at least 5 p.m.

Lovers Lane retail project about to get underway

We've written about some of the new development at Lovers and Matilda before (click here and here), but the Dallas Business Journal says among the new tenants at one of the sites will be a Comerica Bank, Sport Clips, Avon Nail, Lakeside Cleaners, Potbelly Sandwich Works and Freshberry Yogurt Cafe. The $30 million development, which is replacing the Signature Pointe apartment complex, will contain 65,000 square foot retail development. Dirt work began on the project about 30 days ago.

Eastern Partners, the developer, says the property is now about 40 percent leased; construction is scheduled to start in March and be done by the end of 2009, according to the DBJ report.

"The design of it is similar to the Shops at Legacy (in Plano)," one of the developers told the DBJ. "It will have wide sidewalks, plenty of trees and be very commuter-friendly."

Also included in the project will be what the developer describes as 23 "luxury" townhomes priced "in the $300,000 to $400,000 range" and averaging about 2,000 square feet each. (My family debated the merits of that moniker while driving by the other day. What, we wondered, makes one townhome "luxury" while another is just a plain townhome?)

Leppert says our votes count. Except for the convention center hotel?

Here's an interesting juxtaposition: Mayor Tom Leppert is circulating an email with the top headline saying "Convention Center Hotel Critical to Dallas' Future", while the second item is headlined "Vote! It's Your Voice!" (Click here to download tom_leppert_email.pdf and see the email.)

The irony: At least one Leppert spokespuppet on the council already has chortled out loud that even if Dallas residents vote in favor of a potential referendum scuttling the $550 million taxpayer-owned convention center hotel downtown, those votes won't stop the council from moving forward to build the hotel.

So whose voice is Leppert talking about?

Dallas home resale price drop is minimal compared with other U.S. cities

Another of the many stories in the good news/bad news vein these days: The DMN headlines its latest residential real estate story "U.S. home resale prices dive 16.6% as Dallas' dip 2.7%." Further good news for our area from the story: Among the 20 major U.S. cities tracked in this particular study, our area had the smallest decline in home prices compared with sales in August 2007, while Phoenix and Las Vegas both reported drops exceeding 30%. More bad news nationally was that the results from 13 of the 20 markets surveyed had worsened from the month before, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area (but by a pretty negligible 0.2%). Bottom line: Things aren't great in the rest of the country, but we're doing pretty well here on a relative basis. I couldn't find the DMN link for its story, but if you want to look at the actual study, click here and then download the August study pdf.